This is a thread to allow discussions about how those lucky enough to have free will make decisions.
As materialism doesn’t explain squat, this thread is a place for explanations from those that presumably have them.
And if they can’t provide them, well, this will be a short thread.
So do phoodoo, mung, WJM et al care to provide your explanations of how decisions are actually made?
We measure it.
What size is your intelligence?
He’s still dodging!
About 17 Phoodoos, I recon.
Yeah, but not very well. IQ tests are far too prone to all sorts of confounding variable and implicit biases.
But while measurability is nice to have if you can get it, by and large we get by with a much looser and open-ended set of criteria for ascribing psychological predicate to both human and nonhuman animals.
petrushka,
What are the laws that organize atoms and molecules?
As far as l tell. We measure it. We use it for predicting success in a variety of lines of work. We assess it’s efficiency, accuracy, speed, interdisciplinary capability, capacity, along with numerous other characteristics. And we manipulate it with a variety of nutrients, environments, chemical compounds, etc. There are also numerous neurological studies measuring various brain volumes, weights, number of neurons, brain chemistries, and so forth aligned with intelligence.
None of those indicate some as-yet-undiscovered “immaterial” component to intelligence.
It is until phoodoo shows us an example of an intelligent being having no body.
What’s the size of the heat in your oven? What’s the size of the decay of plutonium 239?
Perhaps…just maybe…there are other ways to measure material besides size…
How much does the internet weigh phoodoo?
phoodoo,
Whatever. There’s a thread for that. This thread is about how decisions are made without any such materialist bias getting in the way.
I.E how decisions are made in phoodoo world?
I also think that things can be publicly verifiable in complex ways without being measurable per se, and also that nothing everything measurable is “material”. We can talk about the role of class privilege in the American Revolution and verify those claims using documents and censuses without those claims ever meeting the standard of measurements. And we can measure things like rates of inflation even though we can’t neatly map rates of inflation onto measurements of fundamental physics (“material”).
I suspect that a root problem with immaterialism is the supposition that (to use Piaget) formal operations are just like concrete operations, only with an ontologically weird kind of object, rather than a different way of treating objects.
But would someone really want to say that any intentional object that isn’t a common or proper sensible must therefore belong to a radically different ontological register?
Plato was, I think, tempted by that thought, especially driven (as he was) about Heraclitean ideas about the sensible and Parmenidean ideas about the intelligible. But he was smart enough to realize, in later dialogues, how inadequate the “theory of forms” really is.
Intelligence is more properly the quality of thinking that a brain/mind does, not a thing in itself. It can be treated like a thing in itself, and often is, but really, one more correctly speaks of “an intelligent brain” or says that “intelligence evolved,” meaning that more capable brains evolved.
So it’s a bit silly to ask if intelligence is material or any such thing. Are qualities “material”? Strictly, they are material, assuming they are material qualities, but in communication they’re often treated as if they are not. The real question is if the brain (or “mind” if you’re so inclined) is material, and then ask if it’s intelligent, that is, having the quality to think through things. Again, strictly it would be material so long as the brain is material, but it is a material quality and thus not something you’d weigh or measure with a ruler.
Glen Davidson
You’re too generous!
Here is some food for thought. about a man with a very abnormal brain.
So who or what gets this food for thought; what or who is actually conscious? A man, a brain, a few neurons?
Any knowledge of something called ” Wisdom of the Crowd “,
The article you linked to actually has extensive discussions of theories by neuroscientists who have examined this case. That itself is sufficient to show that there’s no reason to conclude from this pathology that consciousness is generated by something that violates the laws of fundamental physics.
Even if it is non coordinated?
He had an IQ of 75. There is a wide variety of intelligence levels in people with normal brains. I would doubt there is that much range people with his condition.
However it seems testable to me. Implant a device that over many years which expands to fill the same volume that is missing. During that time have the subjects undergo IQ and other testing to determine if indeed the brain is just a receiver for minds. A small sacrifice indeed for definitively proving the immaterial mind is real for all of human history to come!
It has been concluded that larger brains predict greater intelligence. If all you need is 10% of a brain and once the (presumed) ‘connection’ is made any further is irrelevant why has evolution not noticed this?
If there is indeed a difference in 10% and 100% brain size when connecting to the immaterial mind, does that mean that a mutant human with a brain 200% bigger then average would have a better connection to it’s mind? Is there an upper limit?
phoodoo,
Then ID should be Immaterial Design ?
Actually you want negative Phoodoos
no, no a thousand times no
Software does not consider alternatives. Software can’t because Software is not conscious. Minds consider alternatives.
Software merely exhibits a programed response to various stimuli just like a river does.
There is no choosing without a mind
To attribute mental function to things with out minds is nothing less than Animism. It’s pretty much the opposite of atheism
check it out.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animism
peace
Well there you go.
I thought this was supposed to be a skeptical crowd.
Maybe we need to perform some sort of sacrifice to appease the river and convince it to stay in the path we want.
the next thing you know you guys will be consulting a witch doctor to communicate with the trees 😉
peace
I just provided an answer. I’m flabbergasted that you don’t recognize it as an answer.
Are you so bound up in your presuppositions that you are unable to even see an answer when you quote it?
peace
I could go to all the trouble of explaining to you the measurements of heat and radioactivity (decay is a concept, you understand it is not a thing right?) but then we would miss the essential question- Do you believe intelligence is a material object?
If you do, I guess get in line with Walto and Richard, they are throwing you a nice party at Chuck E Cheese. There will be some animal balloons to totally freak you out. There will be a class later to explain to you things about dogs and cats and happiness and sharing. There will be a test at the end to see if you can understand the difference between cats and sharing. Its not going to be easy, but your happiness will be huge!
Now that is funny, I don’t care who you are 😉
Radioactive decay is neither a “thing” nor a concept; it a phenomenon and specifically a process. We did invent the concept of radioactive decay but we did not invent the phenomenon itself.
fifth:
In other words, how do decisions work in phoodoo world? A person decides.
This is why we laugh at you, fifth.
fifth,
Interesting how you skipped over “living brains, functioning normally.” Bias much?
Also, your reasoning is idiotic. The fact that matter in certain configurations can make decisions does not imply that matter in any configuration can do so. Obviously.
That’s the ticket! Now, in that ‘explanation’ I did not notice any detail of how the brain and the mind work together to achieve that. Could you clarify? What does the brain do? What does the mind do?
phoodoo,
Some less so then others I suspect.
The brain does all the things that can be empirically measured
Consciousness does everything else that is important. The mind is the irreduciblely complex system as a whole.
As I pointed out before there are thee types of phenomena.
1) phenomena that are algorithmic (the material brain does these things)
2) phenomena that are random (this is the result of noise in the system)
3) phenomena that are neither algorithmic nor random (this is what consciousness contributes) KN would call these things qualia
exactly how the brain and consciousness are interrelated is one of the most difficult questions that I can think of in science, philosophy or theology .
There can be no mechanism involved because if there was the entire system would be algorithmic. So it is fruitless to look for the exact process that occurs.
I think that integrated information theory is a good step forward in this regard but it’s not the end of the story.
check it out
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_information_theory
peace
What exactly is the determining factor as to whether a brain is functioning normally? A sleeping brain is “functioning normally” but it does not choose
I would agree
You just need to explain what are the configurations of matter that can make decisions and what separates them from all other matter. Keep in mind the answer can’t be complexity or the earth which is vastly more complex than a single brain (because it contains lots of brains) could choose.
peace
No what I did was explain how a person decides in a phoodoo world.
He does so by weighing his options and determining a course of action. This is how decisions work in a phodoo world. It’s exactly what can’t happen in a world where materialism is true.
It’s not an algorithm it’s an explanation
peace
keiths,
You laugh because you have ZERO explanation for how a decision works in your world?
Maybe you just like laughing for no reason?
phoodoo,
If you can’t tell the difference between a phenomenon and a concept of a phenomenon, that’s not my fault. And if you can’t see the point of saying that we invent concepts of phenomena but we don’t invent the phenomena ourselves, that’s also not my fault.
OMagain,
Can a person with 150 IQ fix a car twice as fast as a person with a 75 IQ?
Can the person with a 150 IQ draw something twice as realistic as the person with 75? Do they sing twice as good? Play tennis twice as good? Remember twice as many dates?
“How do people decide? They decide by deciding” is not an explanation. Nor is “people decide by weighing alternatives and choosing whichever seems best to them in light of other considerations” an explanation.
The first one is clearly a tautology and the second one is an implicit definition. It relies on being able to define a decision as what happens when one weighs alternatives and choosing whichever seems best to them in light of other considerations.
If you think that definitions are the same as explanations, you’re a good bit more confused on some very basic issues than I’d realized.
What we want to know is how the immaterial soul can detect immaterial reasons, and how it can be be affected by those reasons, and how it can affect the material body such that one’s actions are a consequence on reasoning (according to dualist metaphysics).
That doesn’t require an “algorithm” (a word you don’t use correctly, by the way), but that’s what an explanation would be — if you had one.
A concept is the name we give to the characteristics of a particular phenomenon. Neither of which, the concept and the phenomenon it represents are material things! Holy shit.
What do you do again?
If you don’t think that radioactive decay is a physical phenomenon, then I have to say that I have no idea at all what you think physics is.
And if you don’t think that concepts are physical things, you really should read some neuroscience.
Kantian Naturalist,
Yea, you expect lots of answers, whilst offering nothing of any sense in exchange. Your side has nothing to say about a decision- so what in the world would make you say our explanation is any less adequate?
You know KN, I wouldn’t normally want to be so dismissive of a man’s opinion, except that you are constantly so smug about how much you think other’s don’t understand things- while you write in lots of words and say so little of truth. So I find it less necessary to hide what I feel about your ideas. Maybe you could do with a bit of humility, all things considered.
Here’s your “answer” again: A persons weighs his options and chooses which course of action he will take.
“Weighing options” is not how decisions work; it is simply decision making. It’s no different than saying that putting water in a kettle on a stove is how water boils (hint: that doesn’t indicate anything about how water boils at all).
So, as I said, according to you in Phoodoo world there is no, and can be no, answer as to how decisions are made. You don’t know – you just said so.
Are you so wrapped up in your presuppositions that you are unable to even consider what how means?
Here’s a really good example of an actual answer to a how question:
how does an internal combustion engine work
Your definition of “decide” is “to choose between one possibility or another”. I provided a dictionary definition of “choose”:
a) pick out or select (someone or something) as being the best or most appropriate of two or more alternatives.
b) decide on a course of action, typically after rejecting alternatives.
The word “consider” is not used in these. If you want to use a different definition, please state it explicitly. We want to avoid confusion, after all.
So you keep asserting, but you have yet to define “choosing” in a way that makes that statement accurate and does not beg the question. Have you stopped to consider that perhaps you are wrong?
In my experience, Kantian Naturalist is more than forthcoming when asked questions about his views. This thread, though, is about your position, not his. It wouldn’t matter if KN were behaving as you falsely accuse him, the fact remains that neither you nor fifthmonarchyman have answered the question posed here.
You are fooling nobody but yourself if you imagine that you do not have beliefs.
Asking for a definition of something is like putting it in a box, it can’t always be done. In order to define thinking one has to put limits on it which does not do it justice. It is like trying to define ones love for another person. Better to describe its attributes. The thinking I am talking about is not letting the mind wander as in day dreaming. It is an activity of an individual which involves a concentration of the mind on an object or topic. Through it we can make connections and understand the reality that is relayed to us as independent, unrelated entities by observation alone.
The quote below is how Steiner describes thinking and the process of observing it.
(I realise that not everyone will read this in an attempt to understand what he is saying. Some will believe that it is a foregone conclusion that what he has stated is nonsense and so will read it in that light. If that is the case then there is no point in you reading it, I would suggest you ignore this part of my reply.)
I’m sure I do. However, I try to root them out and convert them either into justified provisional knowledge or former beliefs.
If you can’t define your terms clearly and unambiguously then you quite literally don’t know what you’re talking about.
Your original questions were:
I can’t answer those without an operational definition of exactly what you mean by “thinking”. Without such an agreement on terms the discussion will founder on misunderstandings, inadvertent equivocations, and implicit assumptions.
I suspect that you will not accept the conclusion that software systems could, in principle if not current practice, think. I further suspect that your personal definition of “thinking” precludes that explicitly. That makes any discussion useless.
If my suspicions are incorrect I do apologize.
Yes its interesting that physics has moved on to a point where physicists posit matter as non-physical in the classic sense. I can see how our imagination can lead us astray when it comes to understanding quantum phenomena, but in what way do our senses lead us astray in this understanding?
So do you agree that it is possible to have thinking beings that consist of pure energy?
So through the power of thinking you have come to the reductionist conclusion that thinking is a composite entity?
And so we are back to triangles and tetrahedra. You stated that you don’t know if these concepts are the same in your mind and mine. If you think about this matter, and consider what it means that there is only one concept “triangle”, then it is not a subjective image which we each create in our minds, it is one single objective entity apprehended by each of us in the same way as the sun is one objective entity.
I am open to the possibility of software systems being able to think one day. But if it does happen it will because they were created by thinking beings in the first place.